Suspension Upgrades

[mason]

Aside from the LSS (Lotus Sport Suspension), does anyone know what kinds of suspension upgrades are available for the Elise?

I know that the Elise suspension is plenty capable but being a guy and being a racer I always have the desire to mess with a good thing. It has been my experience that Koni single or double adjustable shocks can be a nice place to start. I’d like to be able to squeeze just a little more grip and performance from my Elise at some Track Days and autocross.

[Ridgeman580]

I remember reading that The John Cooper Works was going to offer a
special upgrade for the Mini that was
based off one that Bilstein was doing for the Elise.

[melkor]

It's all about budget. JRZ /Penske /Ohlins are all options, though Ohlins does have recomendations for the 03 Elise on their site, the others are most likely to be custom made. It will cost $5,000 to $10,000 for a top notch suspension for the car.

[jsrsx]

Unless it will be a pro-level car, Moton/Ohlins/Penske/etc. are overkill. If the US Elise has upper and lower eye mounts like the previous Exige that I saw, there should be many options as eye mounts of various sizes/lengths can be purchased for numerous applications from Truechoice and other tuners. This opens up the playing field to brands such as Tein (which have independent adjustable compression and rebound dampers), Buddy Club, Zeal, JIC, A'pex, Leda, etc. These brands/models will also offer independently adjustable height and spring preload to retain full stroke at any height.

[Tripledigits]

Moton makes an Elise fitment in their top end shocks. Double or triple adjustable on request. One really nice feature of the more expensive shocks is their very wide range of adjustment, which makes for a nicer street ride than you can get on a less expensive racing shock. Are they worth the extra money? That is subjective. I have Motons on my Supra because I couldn't live with the street ride of a less adjustable racing shock. The fact that once you tune them they are a phenomenal race shock is just a bonus. These shocks move alot of fluid in a small amount of travel, and that's what makes them a great shock. It's very accurate at controlling a stiffly sprung track car.

Retail, IIRC, is about $6K per set. This doesn't include springs, but they are pretty inexpensive.

Jeff

[235home]

When the cars start arriving I will be interested to hear the pros and cons of the optional "Sports Package", i.e. just how much this package affects the ride of the car for use as a daily driver.

I hope members will report their impressions from the test drives they take.

[jsrsx]

Tripledigits: How often do you overhaul the Motons? Race-level dampers are definitely great, but one of the reasons for their phenomenal road sensitive and tractability is the oil they use, which tend to deteriorate much more quickly then brands that are aimed more toward track/street duty. I personally haven't had a problem with any of the track/street brands I've tried/felt (A'pex N1, JIC FLT-A2, Buddy Club RS, Zeal B6, and Tein RE) in terms of ride quality or performance. Tho I would enjoy the additional tunability to put knees into my damper curves, that's just not needed for the level of driving/competing I do. The oils in these track/street dampers tend to last quite a while w/o any degradation in damening either, so that's good for users who don't want to pay for frequent overhauls. Certain models such as the A'pex N1 Pro and Buddy Club RS have very large main pistons and can provide quite good road feel. And I think the ability to adjust height/corner weighting while retaining full stroke is very valuable to any street driven car where it will see long strokes and higher piston speeds. I'd love a set of Motons, but will settle for a well-performing damper at a third the cost.
Since the sport package dampers don't have stroke retention ability when height is adjusted, I'll likely look into one of the brands/models I've already experienced and get some eye mounts to make them fit the Elise.

[mark starr]

I spent several Days with Nick Adams who is in charge of Vehicle Development/Lotus Engineering for the Elise project at the LA Auto Show. He KRINGED every time someone came in and started talking about suspension changes on the Elise. Engineering has spent THOUSANDS of hours fine tuning the suspension on the Elise. If you plan on using it for the street, LEAVE THE SUSPENSION ALONE!!!!! If you plan on using it on the track often, BUY THE SPORT PACKAGE!!!!!! You are buying a Lotus for what it is known for, a great cornering, lightweight, nimble true sports car. I have the Nitron suspension on my Exige and find myself trying to fine tune it every time I go out on the track. Should I stiffen it of soften it? My partner is drving on the stock suspension and there is no noticable difference in lap times. THEY GOT IT RIGHT FROM THE GET GO!!!! Drive with the stock suspension and leave it alone. Every modification has a domino effect. Even changing tires. The sport suspension was tuned by Lotus after thousands of hours using different tire, height, bushing, shock, spring and whatever settings are possible to change. I feel comfortable with what they have done.............That's my two cents here..........

[Tripledigits]

Originally posted by jsrsx
Tripledigits: How often do you overhaul the Motons? Race-level dampers are definitely great, but one of the reasons for their phenomenal road sensitive and tractability is the oil they use, which tend to deteriorate much more quickly then brands that are aimed more toward track/street duty.

Jsrx

I haven't yet had to go inside the Motons, but the distributor tells me it's pretty easy for the owner to open the shock and change the oil. Frequency of change is totally dependent on use - a long season of road racing would see an oil change at least once a year, while an autox season would probably call for a change every couple years, from what I'm told.

Jeff

[235home]

If you plan on using it for the street, LEAVE THE SUSPENSION ALONE!!!!! If you plan on using it on the track often, BUY THE SPORT PACKAGE!!!!!!

My question is: what if I intend to use it mostly on the street and occasionally on the track? Will the Sport Package beat me up in my daily commute?

[WholeFNShow]

I heard that the Elise has around a 1.00 lateral grip.. Which means it's one of the best gripping/handling cars on the road!!!

[jsrsx]

Jeff: yes, the frequency and type of usage will definitely determine the frequency of required overhauls. I don't know how user-servicable the Motons are. I know Koni sells a kit for owners to self-service their 2812/2822 dampers. Perhaps Moton offers something similar or the Koni and other similar kits can be used. The fluid in most race dampers typically don't like seeing high piston speeds often, but that's what happens during road use. And the seals may experience additional forces due to those high piston speeds that may require more frequent attention too. All-in-all, I would love a set of Motons, but the cost is too restrictive for me and I've been very satisfied in the off-the-shelf units available from Japan and Europe, especially considering those can be custom valved and sprung at an additional cost of about $500/set.

I agree that the Elise will likely be one of the most well tuned suspensions available in OEM form. However, I have known ppl who have gotten improved lap times w/ upgraded coilovers on their Exiges. We'll just have to see how it is when it's released.

[mason]

I agree, the Elise will be a very capable car “out of the box” but there’s no doubt that the Lotus engineers must have made some compromises to make this car more compliable for the US street (they’ve said so in articles). Maybe the LSS is as good as it gets but without adjustable dampers I would think that the car could still be improved.

The issue is how much knowledge will it take to be able to make the car handle better? I’m fairly adept at car setup and very mechanically inclined and I spent most of last year trying to get a Mini Cooper S to handle properly and I had a lot of help from some expert drivers and suspension companies. Granted for my Cooper we had a very limited development window due to production on the manufacturer side but still setting up suspension is no easy task. Remember each adjustable part you add just adds another variable to the mix.

In the end the car did handle better than stock but with the Elise I think that the baseline is much higher making it more difficult to improve upon. If some one wants to “tweak” the Elise suspension they better make sure that they have the experience (or the company they’re buying a kit from) to troubleshoot very advanced suspension systems.

[WholeFNShow]

Why increase your handling when the Elise is the best handling street legal car ever test driven???

[235home]

I don't know about the best--have you read the reviews on the Noble M12? Its like an Elise on steroids.

It is imported to the U.S., sans drive train, by 1gRacing. In English form, with 6 cyl. Ford motor (twin turbos), it does 0-60 in 3.7 seconds and, according to several reviewers, is the best handling car they have ever driven.

That's the good news. The bad news is that its over 56k before you install the motor.

www.1gracing.com has several videos of the car in action.